1. The transcriptional repressor DEC2 regulates sleep length in mammals
- Author
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Ying Xu, Moritz J. Rossner, Nobuhiro Fujiki, Bin Guo, Ying-Hui Fu, Christopher R. Jones, Seiji Nishino, Jimmy L. Holder, and Ying He
- Subjects
Activity Cycles ,Male ,ved/biology.organism_classification_rank.species ,Animals, Genetically Modified ,Mice ,Insomnia ,Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Transcription Factors ,Homeostasis ,Child ,media_common ,Genetics ,Mice, Knockout ,Multidisciplinary ,Electroencephalography ,Middle Aged ,Circadian Rhythm ,Pedigree ,Wakefulness ,Drosophila ,Female ,medicine.symptom ,Vigilance (psychology) ,Adult ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Adolescent ,Transgene ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Molecular Sequence Data ,Sleep, REM ,Mice, Transgenic ,Biology ,Internal medicine ,Zeitgeber ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,Point Mutation ,Circadian rhythm ,Amino Acid Sequence ,Model organism ,Aged ,ved/biology ,Electromyography ,Sleep deprivation ,Endocrinology ,Amino Acid Substitution ,Sleep Deprivation ,Sleep ,Transcription Factors - Abstract
Reducing Sleep Length Humans, like most animals, need their beauty sleep. But the preferred amount and quality of sleep varies between individuals—and some individuals exhibit a heritable, lifetime tendency to sleep less then 6 hours per night. He et al. (p. 866 ; see the Perspective by Hor and Tafti ) identified a mutation in humans associated with people who regularly require shorter than usual sleep duration. The mutation is found in the gene encoding a transcriptional repressor, DEC2, already implicated in regulation of circadian rhythms. Related mutations introduced into mice and flies similarly resulted in shortened sleep phases.
- Published
- 2009